Thursday, 2 March 2017

After Mosul Falls, Trump Loses Influence In Iraq

After Mosul Falls, Trump Loses Influence In Iraq

Iraqi forces, helped by US
military advisors, are inching their way toward the re-conquest of
Mosul, the country’s second-largest city, from the Islamic State and its
allies.

The Baghdad government and
the newly-installed Donald Trump administration will undoubtedly hail
the taking of the city as a triumph, in that it marks the weakening of a
terrorist threat and the beginning of an era of peace in Iraq.

If only.

For all its extremism and
chronic barbarities, the Islamic State, in both its Iraqi and Syrian
versions, is a symptom of larger, long-running discontent among segments
of the Sunni Muslim population in each country—a 75 percent majority in
Syria, a 20 percent minority in Iraq. In Iraq, ultra-sectarian
Shiite Muslim politicians dominate the government and have shown little
interest in reaching out to the Sunni population, once the bedrock of
support for deposed dictator Saddam Hussein. Sunnis have fought back
with along-running insurgency that began shortly after the 2003 US
invasion that ousted Saddam from power.

Now, horrified by the
terroristic excesses of the Islamic State and finding its insurgency
collapsing, Sunnis find themselves in an evermore weakened position with
no one to turn to. So will the seething Sunni population finally throw in the towel and accept perpetual marginalization? Unlikely. It’s worth remembering that
shortly after the US invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, American officials
said lingering violence was but the work of a few “dead-enders;” and
back in 2007, following the vaunted US military ‘surge’ in Iraq, the
insurgency under al-Qaeda was declared dead. Yet, the insugency lived
on. Only a political solution, not periodic military moves, can pacify
Iraq.

After Mosul’s fall to the
Islamic State in 2014, President Barack Obama called for the Baghdad
government to reconcile with Sunnis. Occasionally, Obama fancifully
claimed that political inclusiveness had already happened. It never did.

Neither former Prime
Minister Nour al-Maliki nor his successor Haidar al-Abadi, who took
office in 2014, provided Sunnis access to political participation nor
economic relief to persuade the community that it is part of Iraqi
society. Repeated atrocities against Sunni civilians by Shiite militias
encourage Sunni suspicions. The rulers in Baghdad have been more
interested in enriching themselves through corrupt dealings than easing
the country’s ethnic strife.

The Trump Administration
would likely want to try again to foster political reconciliation.
Unfortunately for Washington, American ability to badger Baghdad is low
and will decline further when Mosul is taken. Once the city is freed,
America’s value to Baghdad will shrink. Moreover, there is a
countervailing force with a greater store of influence: Iran, which
seems little interested in Iraqi national reconciliation. In reality, the Mosul
campaign has been not just a US-Iraqi undertaking, but a three-legged
alliance-of-convenience that includes Iran. Iran-sponsored Shiite
militias have been busy blocking the western exits from Mosul to close
off Islamic State escape routes. Iranian advisors counsel these militias
andhave put some of its own troops on the ground. All this is worrying
to Sunnis who fear not only Shiite domination but Iran’s. And while American military
muscle in Iraq is temporary, Iran’s is permanent. Iranian-sponsored
Iraqi militias groups have long operated in Iraq. They help keep Abadi
weak—he lacks full control over government use of force in his own
country. Most of Iraq’s army is weaker and less motivated than the armed
groups sponsored by Iran.

My guess is that once Mosul
falls, Iran will pressure Abadi to expel the US advisors currently
present and reject any idea of a larger force to stay on. Meanwhile,
Iran’s Shiite militias might well remain in the north where they never
had a presence before.

Trump has few cards to play. His expressed hostility to Iran is unlikely to lure Tehran into some sort of accommodation. Moreover, after Obama’s
US-mediated nuclear weapons deal, Iran is unconstrained by the threat of
an Israeli and/or US attack on its atomic facilities. Without that
concern, it is free to overtly and covertly carry out its key foreign
policy goal: expulsion of the US from the Middle East. Iran’s axis of
allies already runs from Tehran through Damascus and into Lebanon.

Iran will soon cement its
influence with the Iraqi government, one that ironically the US saved
from the Islamic State and its Sunni insurgent allies.